Chapter 4
With the election of fresh consuls and the departure of Sulla to Greece, the start of the year may have seemed to bring fresh hope after the tumultuous events of 88 BC. Certainly, the war against the remnants of the rebel Italian armies continued and there was a full-blown invasion of Rome’s eastern empire to deal with, but the crisis caused by the consular march on Rome appeared to have abated. Indeed, there was nothing inevitable about there being further bloodshed amongst the Roman elite. Political solutions could have been found for the Italian question and economic ones for the financial crisis. Sulla could have defeated Mithridates, restored the eastern empire and returned home triumphant. Pompeius Strabo’s ambitions could have been accommodated, and Marius, who was an old man, could have easily died in exile. As it happened, none of these events came to pass and the issues that lay unresolved by the events of 88 BC were exacerbated by the events of this year, not ameliorated.
Interestingly, the year seemed to contain a number of omens and portents. Most famously, Halley’s Comet passed through the skies of the ancient world towards the end of this year.¹ Plutarch and a fragment of Livy (who also quotes Diodorus) all report that a group of Etruscan soothsayers determined that one of the eight ages of man was coming to an end in this period, which would usher in a new race and a new era.² Cicero, who was contemporaneous with the period, reports that a certain Cornelius Culleolus, a man of senatorial background, also made a number of prophesies of doom this year.³ To a modern audience, such portents can be too easily dismissed, yet we must never forget the effect they may have had on the background social and political atmosphere at the time.
1. The Samnite Campaign
With the Marsic campaign ended, only the remnants of the Samnite alliance continued fighting, in particular the Samnites and Lucanians. Metellus Pius continued in his pro-magisterial command against the Samnites, though we have no details of any military engagements, other than a fragment of Dio that refers to the Samnites still ravaging Campania.⁴ When leaving for Greece, Sulla had left one legion to continue the siege of Nola, possibly commanded by Ap. Claudius Pulcher.⁵
However, thanks to a fragment of Diodorus, we hear of one last bold move by a number of the surviving Italian leaders to open up a fresh front of the war, namely an invasion of Sicily. The island had been the scene of the two largest slave revolts in Rome’s empire to date, but had been quiet during the Marsic and Samnite campaigns, most likely due to its pacification only a decade earlier.⁶
M. Lamponius, Ti. Clepitius and also Pontius [Telesinus], the generals of the Italian remnant, who were now in Bruttium, laid siege for a long time to Isiae [Tisia], a strongly fortified city. They did not succeed in capturing it, but, leaving a part of their army to continue the siege, strongly attacked Rhegium with the rest of their forces, expecting that if they succeeded they would be able to transport their armies to Sicily with ease, and win control of the richest island under the sun. But C. Norbanus, the governor of Sicily, by prompt use of his large army and military sources, struck fear into the Italians by the magnitude of his preparations and rescued the people of Rhegium.⁷
Though this fragment is light on military detail, it seems that the prompt actions of the Roman governor of Sicily, C. Norbanus, prevented the capture of Rhegium by the Italians and prevented an invasion of Sicily. With escape from Italy denied them, the rebel forces were now trapped in Italy, though again we have no detail as to the size of their forces. What this incident does show us, however, is that the rebel Italian forces could still muster enough strength to attack Roman cities and were not completely defeated yet.
2. The Thracian Wars
Outside of Italy, Rome still faced a full-scale invasion of Greece and Macedonia by an assortment of Thracian tribes. Again, this war will be covered in more detail later (Chapter 5). The governor of Macedonia at the time was C. Sentius, but as detailed below, his defence of the region was undermined by a second invasion of Greece, this time from the east, which he judged to be the greater threat, seemingly leaving the tribes to plunder at will.
3. The First Mithridatic War
The full details of the First Mithridatic War fall outside the scope of this present work, yet the course the war took did have an important impact on events in the civil war. Mithridates had taken full advantage of the chaos in Rome to launch a full scale-invasion of Asia, Rome’s richest province, accompanied by the mass slaughter of the Roman and Italian citizens living there (see Chapter 2). Meeting no serious opposition, his armies then crossed from Asia and invaded Greece and Macedonia. Not only was this the first invasion of Greece from the east in over a century, but it is clear that a number of the Greeks defected to Mithridates’ side, welcoming him as a liberator, an ironic reversal from the situation in the previous century. The most notable of all these defections was the city of Athens itself. Thus 100 years of expansion had been thrown into reverse and Greece, Macedonia and Asia had fallen from Roman control within the space of a year. Overall, in the space of just four years, a large number of both Italian and Greek subject peoples had revolted against Roman rule, marking what must have seemed to many at the time, as the collapse of the Rome’s empire. Map 6 represents this reversal of fortune and shows the extent of the Mithridatic Empire at its height.
Furthermore, aside from the military defeats and the defections, there were worrying signs that Roman forces were not co-operating with each other. In the absence of reinforcements from Italy, the governor of Macedonia, C. Sestius, sent his forces (commanded by his legate C. Bruttius Sura) into Greece to try to block Mithridates’ invasion by both land and sea. Again, we are hampered by a lack of clear narrative sources with regard to the campaigns of Bruttius, but we do possess some interesting details. There are two surviving sources, Appian’s Mithridatic Wars and Plutarch’s biography of Sulla:
Bruttius advanced against him [Metrophanes] with a small force from Macedonia, fought a naval battle against him, sinking one ship and one hemiolia, and killed all who were in them while Metrophanes looked on. The latter fled in terror, and, as he had a favourable wind, Bruttius could not overtake him, but stormed Sciathos, which was a storehouse of plunder for the barbarians, crucified some of them who were slaves, and cut off the hands of the freemen. Then he turned against Boeotia, having received reinforcements of 1,000 foot and horse from Macedonia. Near Chaeronea he was engaged in a battle of three days’ duration with Archelaus and Aristion [two more of Mithridates’ allies], the battle being evenly contested throughout. But when the Lacedaemonians and Achaeans came to the aid of Archelaus and Aristion, Bruttius thought that he was not a match for all of them together and withdrew to the Piraeus.⁸
Plutarch’s biography of Sulla, however, paints a different slant on the campaigns of Bruttius:
For here he [Archelaus] was confronted by Bruttius Sura, who was a lieutenant of Sentius, the praetor of Macedonia, and a man of superior courage and prudence. This man, as Archelaus came rushing like a torrent through Boeotia, opposed him most fiercely, and after giving battle at Chaeronea, repulsed him, and drove him back to the sea. But when Lucius Lucullus ordered him to give way to Sulla, who was due to arrive, and to leave the conduct of the war to him, as the Senate had voted, he at once abandoned Boeotia and marched back to Sentius, although his efforts were proving successful beyond hope, and although the nobility of his bearing was making Greece well disposed towards a change of allegiance. However, these were the most brilliant achievements of Bruttius.⁹
Here we have some important differences between the two accounts, though both agree on the military pedigree of Bruttius, who does not appear elsewhere in our sources after this campaign, which is both interesting and unfortunate. In Appian, the battle of Chaeronea is a stalemate, with Bruttius being forced to withdraw when outnumbered. In Plutarch, the battle of Chaeronea is a Roman victory, but one that was wasted when the Roman commanders disagreed with each other and lost the momentum of the campaign. It is interesting that blame seems to be evenly attached to both Bruttius and Lucullus. Lucullus was technically correct that the command against Mithridates had been (re)awarded to Sulla by the Senate, but only after the armed intervention in Rome. Nevertheless, if Bruttius’ campaign had been as successful as Plutarch relates, the truth of which we will never know, then it has hardly the time to pull rank and disrupt a successful defence against Mithridates’ forces. Thus it appears, at least to Plutarch, that the Roman defence of their empire was being undermined by disunity between Roman commanders in the field, caused in great part by the events in Rome of 88 BC.
4. Unresolved Questions in Rome
Aside from the ongoing wars in Italy and Greece, there were a number of unresolved issues in Rome that still dominated the domestic political agenda. The first and most obvious was the legacy of the consular interventions of 88 BC. Of the four key men involved in clashes of the previous year, two lay dead (P. Sulpicius and Q. Pompeius Rufus), yet C. Marius was still alive and in exile in northern Africa and L. Cornelius Sulla was now engaged in fighting Mithridates’ forces in Greece. Whilst there would have surely been many in Rome who hoped neither man would return, the reality must have been that both men could, sooner or later, be making bids to return home and re-establish a dominance they once held. Certainly, both men still had a number of supporters in Rome, though the key Marian allies had been exiled and key Sullan ones would have accompanied him to Greece. By far the majority of Romans, including those in the Senate, would not have been close adherents of either man, but would have been hoping for a return to calm after the events of 88 BC and would certainly have wanted to avoid any repetition.
Aside from Marius himself, there were up to eleven other men who had been outlawed with him. Whilst Sulpicius was dead, the majority, some of whom are not clearly identified, would have also been in exile, most likely in northern Africa with Marius or Spain with Brutus. In addition, there were still a number of exiles from the Varian Commission of 90 BC (see Chapter 2). Both groups would have had supporters in Rome pushing for their respective exiles to be overturned.
Domestic politics in Rome would have been governed by the new constitutional settlement that the consuls of 88 BC had enacted, details of which will forever be open to question, but which may have involved limitations of the power of the tribunate and of the tribal assemblies (see Chapter 3). Certainly, the people, and no doubt a number of ambitious politicians, would have been agitating for the reversal of these measures, passed as they were following an armed occupation of the city.
As detailed earlier, the war in Italy had already devastated Rome’s economy and finances, with a full-blown credit crisis, leading to the murder of a praetor on the streets of Rome by enraged creditors. This was compounded by the loss of Asia, the richest province in Rome’s empire and the source of considerable tax revenue, which can only have made the financial crisis even worse for Rome.
Although the war against the Italian rebels was virtually over, with only the Samnite campaign ongoing, the question over how to integrate all of these new Roman citizens still remained unanswered. Sulpicius’ law to enrol them evenly across all the thirty-five tribes had been annulled by the consuls during the previous year. This meant that there were a huge number of newly enfranchised citizens still with no firm idea over where they would be in the Roman electoral system. Whilst this may not have bothered the vast majority of Italian peasants, who lived far from Rome, for the provincial elites, who wanted to be a part of the system, this would have been a continuing grievance.
The previous year had shown the political dangers of armies operating on the Italian peninsula; that they could be used to settle domestic political disputes in Rome itself. Whilst Metellus was still engaged with the Samnite War, there were at least two other armies still in Italy, which seem to have been under-utilized and still represented a potential danger. One lay under the command of the proconsul Cn. Pompeius Strabo and had been responsible for the murder of one of the consuls of the previous year. The other was under the command of an Ap. Claudius and was at Capua or Nola (the sources disagree on which).¹⁰ Again, we are not told whether it was actively involved in combat or merely mopping-up activities. Given that Appian stated that Sulla’s army set out from Capua, it is likely that the remaining forces were ones that Sulla himself had left behind.¹¹
Thus there were a number of elements that overshadowed the start of the new consular year. Yet despite all these, there was still no inevitability about the events that befell Rome this year. The crisis of 88 BC had passed and its key players dispersed, and Rome’s ruling elite had it within their ability to ensure the year passed peacefully and to resolve the key issues that were affecting the Republic, as they had done so many times before. Yet as we shall see, as with 88 BC, there were key individuals whose actions provided the spark to the powderkeg that has been described above.
5. Conflict on the Streets of Rome
Whilst the armed struggles of 88 BC were caused by the two consuls acting in unison against a tribune, those of 87 BC were caused by the two consuls going to war with each other (a first) and were of a far higher magnitude. As far as we are concerned, the two consuls of 87 BC arrive on the scene as unknown quantities. We must quickly discard any notions that one was a ‘Sullan’ and the other a ‘Marian’. We do know that the Sullan-Pompeian ticket for this year had been rejected by the electorate and that Sulla, as the surviving consul, had sworn at least one, if not both, of his successors to uphold the Pompeian-Sullan settlement: constitutional reforms and the annulment of Sulpicius’ legislation, especially where Sulla’s command against Mithridates was concerned.
The two new consuls were Cn. Octavius, from a leading plebeian family, and L. Cornelius Cinna, who came from an obscure patrician family. Prior to his consulship, we have two fleeting references to Cinna’s military service in the Italian Wars, as a praetorian commander who along with Metellus helped defeat the Marsi in 89 BC (see Chapter 2).¹²
Again, we have no clear timeline for the year, but it soon became apparent that the two consuls had diametrically opposing views with regard to one of the key political issues in Rome: the Italian question. It was Cinna who once again revived the Sulpician plan to distribute all new citizens throughout all the existing tribes rather than just create new ones who would vote last and thus be marginalized. Florus, however, makes no mention of the citizenship issue and solely relates a Cinnan proposal to recall the Marian (and possibly Varian) exiles.¹³
Ultimately, we will never know Cinna’s motivation in proposing the full distribution of new citizens, but it is futile to divide the consuls up into optimate and populares camps, as it is far too simplistic. One of the key factors in winning the war against the Italian Federation had been the vast swathes of Italian peoples that had not joined the rebellion, having been offered full citizenship. If this bribe turned out to be worth less than initially thought, then there was a clear danger the rebellion could flare up once more, this time with previously loyal communities involved. Naturally enough, the Roman politician who achieved this even distribution of new citizens would have been able to count on the support of a number of them, but equally, he knew that he would be opposed by many of the existing ones, especially those in Rome.
This is what we see happening in Rome in 87 BC: a clash between new and old citizens. However, unlike the previous year, when the new citizens were championed by Sulpicius and ultimately Marius, and the old by the consuls, this time the two groups of citizens had one consul each as their champion, thus splitting the Roman state into two; three if we include the neutrals who wanted to maintain peace and order in Rome.
Battle of the Forum
Once again, we see Roman domestic politics turning violent. Appian, Plutarch and Exsuperantius all refer to a major conflict on the streets of Rome:
While Octavius was still at home awaiting the result, the news was brought to him that the majority of the tribunes had vetoed the proposed action, but that the new citizens had started a riot, drawn their daggers on the street and assaulted the opposing tribunes on the rostra.¹⁴ When Octavius heard this he ran down through the Via Sacra with a large number of men, burst into the Forum like a torrent, pushed through the middle of a crowd, and separated them. He struck terror into them, went onto the Temple of Castor and Pollux and drove Cinna away; while his companions fell upon the new citizens without orders, killed many of them, put the rest to flight and pursued them to the city gate.¹⁵
For this reason Octavius was aroused to put an end to the dissension, and with the approval of the old citizens he took us arms, depending on the support of Sulla’s forces, and forced his colleague Cinna into exile. In the course of these events, a large number of citizens were killed on both sides.¹⁶
A great battle was fought in the forum between the consuls, in which Octavius was victorious, and Cinna and Sertorius took to flight, after losing almost 10,000 men …¹⁷
On the face of it, we again have a battle between the new and old citizens on the streets of Rome, with both consuls losing control of their supporters and ending with a massacre. Yet the scale of this conflict appears to have been unlike anything Rome had seen before, especially if we turn to Plutarch’s account, which has 10,000 men killed in Rome itself, and paints the conflict as more of a military battle than an urban riot. As well as higher casualties than any previous clash in Rome (even if we consider the 10,000 figure to be an exaggeration), the intensity of the conflict seems to have led to another act by Cinna. Rather than accept a defeat, both politically and on the streets, Cinna apparently appealed to the slaves of Rome to rise up and aid him in return for his freedom, though this may be a corruption of the slave force used later in the year.¹⁸ If true, this would be the second year in a row that a senior Roman politician had called on slaves of Rome to rise up (the other being Marius). What is clear is that Cinna then fled the city along with a number of supporters, including Sertorius and six of the ten tribunes. In response, the Senate took the unprecedented step of having verses from the Sibylline books read aloud in public for the first time, which was used to justify sentences of exile on a serving consul and six serving tribunes.
Whilst violence in a legislative assembly was not new, the scale of the massacre seems to have spurred Cinna to take a fateful step in fleeing the city, following Sulla’s example, though the call for a slave insurrection, if accurate, again highlights the increased intensity of the clashes. We will never know whether this flight was due to Cinna being in fear of his life or a calculated move to escalate the situation. However, it soon became clear that Cinna was attempting to ferment the rebellion that his very measure was attempting to avoid.
6. The Formation of the Duumvirate of Cinna and Marius
Cinna and his supporters toured the nearby Italian towns (all now eligible for Roman citizenship), in an attempt to stir up a fresh rebellion against his own state. Taking a leaf out of Sulla’s book he apparently determined that his only course of action was to return to Rome at the head of an army. Whilst he may have had the Sullan-Pompeian model in mind, the circumstances were much different. Rather than the consuls using military force to quash a ‘seditious tribune’, he would be opposed by his consular colleague, opening the way to Rome’s full-blown consular civil war.
Cinna raised soldiers from two sources: firstly, from the newly enfranchised Italian states, all fearful for their newly won status; and secondly, by visiting the Roman army at Nola/Capua under the command of Ap. Claudius and winning them over to his cause, just as Sulla had done a year previously (by appearing as a consul of Rome trying to restore order to his city). Again, we can return to Morstein-Marx’s argument over how citizen soldiers viewed consular legitimacy; the big difference on this occasion being a clash between equally legitimate consuls.
Velleius states that he soon raised thirty legions, a figure treated with justified scepticism by modern commentators.¹⁹ Nevertheless, it would have been a significant body of men. During the Marsic and Samnite campaigns, Rome and her loyal Italian allies fought rebel Italians. In the war of 88 BC, Roman fought Roman for control of Rome. Now Romans and Italians fought together against other Romans and Italians for control of Rome, with all sense of loyalist and rebel abandoned.
With one of the consuls in open insurrection, it was not long before Marius and his allies appeared back in Italy, landing in Etruria and recruiting 6,000 Etrurians to his cause. Fentress has argued that Marius in the period 88–87 BC had organized a coup in Numidia and placed a Gaetulian pretender Iarbas on the throne.²⁰ Granius Licinianus states that Marius landed in Italy with 1,000 men (a mixture of Italian exiles and Mauri cavalry²¹), where he was soon joined by M. Iunius Brutus, another of the twelve hostes, who had fled to Spain, along with a number of the other exiles.²²This was a major boost to Cinna’s cause, not only in terms of manpower, but because it brought him a figurehead and established military leader in the form of Marius – six-time consul, saviour of Rome, with an impeccable Italian heritage. Thus was formed a duumvirate, between Marius and Cinna, unifying two previous separate disputes, and two sets of supporters. As Florus states, with Marius as figurehead, recruits flocked to his banner, many of whom must have been his veterans from the Jugurthine and Northern Wars over a decade previously.²³ Furthermore, we are told that Marius recruited slaves and convicts to bolster his forces.²⁴
Back in Rome, the Senate and the remaining consul, Octavius, had Cinna stripped of his office (the second consecutive year that this had happened), ostensibly for attempting to ferment slave insurrection in Rome. In his place, L. Cornelius Merula was elected as consul. Merula wasFlamen Dialis (high priest of Jupiter), whose role prevented him from engaging in military activity or even leaving the city and thus proved to be a silent partner for Octavius.²⁵
In military terms, Cinna, and now Marius, had achieved what Sulla had the year before: a sudden tactical advantage and military superiority. The difference lay in the fact that Rome was held by a serving consul who had the imperium to call upon military forces to support his own cause. Furthermore, Cinna and Marius had to assemble and combine their forces rather than march straight on Rome, as Sulla and Pompeius Rufus had done. Although this gave the faction in Rome time to defend the city, the initiative still clearly lay with the duumvirs.
Octavius and the Senate had a limited amount of time to marshal a defence of the city before any move was made by the duumviral forces. In terms of manpower, they had two options: to raise fresh troops from Rome and the surrounding areas and/or summon back the remaining armies in Italy. To this end, we are told they levied troops from the environs of Rome and as far away as Cisalpine Gaul, and summoned the armies of Cn. Pompeius Strabo and Q. Caecilius Metellus Pius. Of the two commanders, Metellus came willingly, but had to first extricate himself from the ongoing Samnite campaign. Metellus was ordered to make peace with the Samnites as best he could and return to Rome at all costs. Unfortunately for him, he was bargaining from a position of weakness and the Samnites knew this. Fragments of both Dio and Granius Licinianus preserve these negotiations:
[Octavius and the Senate] sent for Metellus, bidding him to come to terms with the Samnites as best as he might; for at the time they alone were still ravaging Campania and the district beyond it. Nevertheless, he did not conclude a truce with them, since they demanded that citizenship be not only given to them, but also to those who had deserted to their side. They refused to give up any of the booty which they had and demanded back all the captives and deserters from their own ranks. As a result, even the senators no longer chose to make peace with them on these terms.²⁶
The Senate was asked by the envoys of Metellus to decide about the allegiance of the Samnites, who said that they would not agree to peace except on condition that they and all the deserters should receive the citizenship, and have their property returned. The Senate refused, wishing to preserve the ancient dignity of the Roman people. When Cinna heard about this, with the help of Flavius Fimbria he enlisted the Samnites on the terms which they requested, and joined their forces to his.²⁷
With no other option, Metellus withdrew from the campaign and returned to defend Rome. Not only had the Samnites benefited from a Roman withdrawal, but Marius and Cinna soon concluded an alliance with them against Rome, most likely on the terms they demanded. Thus, from the brink of defeat the Samnites had now gone onto the offensive against Rome, albeit on one side of a Roman civil war.
The recall of Cn. Pompeius Strabo proved to be equally troublesome, even though he was not apparently involved in an active campaign. Having connived at the murder of a consul the previous year, Strabo had a clear track record of looking after his own interests first and promptly opened negotiations with both sides. Velleius best sums the situation up:
Foiled in his hope of a second consulship, he maintained a doubtful and neutral attitude as between the two parties, so that he seemed to be acting entirely in his own interest and to be watching his chance, turning with his army now to one side then another, according to each offer of greater promise of power for himself.²⁸
In the end he camped outside of Rome, most likely at the Colline Gate, ostensibly on the side of Octavius and the Senate. Thus the Senate could call upon the forces of Metellus (of unknown size), the fresh levies they had raised, and possibly the armies of Pompeius Strabo. The surviving sources preserve no clear idea of the numbers on Octavius’ side, but Brunt estimates that it cannot have been more than 60,000 and that they were outnumbered two to one by the duumvirate.²⁹ With no other option, Octavius and the Senate fortified Rome and prepared for the first siege of Rome in over 300 years. Walls were repaired, trenches dug and siege engines placed on the walls.
7. The Siege of Rome – 87 BC
For Cinna and Marius, whilst their motivations may have been different, the taking of Rome would allow them to legitimize their actions, as Sulla and Pompeius had done the year previously, through a cowed Senate and People. For Cinna, as serving consul, he could claim to be acting in defence of the Republic and restoring order to a city seized by a mob. How much he truly believed this, we will never know. What is clear is that Cinna, like his estranged colleague Octavius and their predecessors Sulla and Pompeius before them, appears to have been totally convinced that his actions were justified and that only he knew how to ‘save’ the Republic from its enemies, even when one was his fellow consul. Years of warfare and bloodshed on their own doorstep appear to have hardened certain of the Roman elites, especially those who had fought in the Italian War. Apparently, compromise was not an option, only establishing the superiority of their own views and programmes.
The chronology of the battle for Rome is confused by the large number of fragmentary and sometimes contradictory accounts. Added to which is the fact that that there may have been up to four Marii fighting in them: the elder C. Marius, his son C. Marius (the Younger), a nephew of the elder Marius named M. Marius Gratidianus, and another M. Marius, who is an unknown relation (possibly another nephew).³⁰ Nevertheless, we have a good surviving account in Appian, which provides us with the outline of the campaign and the key events, supplemented by a number of additional snippets from the surviving sources, most notably Granius Licinianus, which though fragmentary contain significant amount of detail.
Whilst we have few details on the size of the armies involved, we can recreate the key dispositions and tactics of the two sides. The duumviral army was divided into three or four parts (the sources are divided on which), headed by Marius, Cinna, Q. Sertorius and Cn. Papirius Carbo (another key Cinnan lieutenant). Orosius tells us that Marius had three legions; the rest are of unknown size. Whilst they were still organizing their armies, it appears that Marius ordered a cavalry detachment to advance upon Rome under the command of a Milonius, expecting to find the city undefended.³¹ However, this apparently came to nought, as he obviously found the city guarded and prepared.
The key strategy that was adopted in the early phase of the siege appears to have been one of encirclement, cutting off Rome’s food supply and any reinforcements. To these ends, Marius took his forces to lay siege to Ostia, Rome’s port and vital connection to the sea, whilst attacking a number of coastal cities loyal to Rome, with a fleet of ships.³² Bridges were erected across the Tiber to cut Rome off from Ostia and the sea, but Ostia fell quickly, having been betrayed to him by a Valerius.³³ Setting an ominous precedent, Marius then proceeded to sack the city, butchering a number of the inhabitants, and plundering the property – an unfortunate first in Roman history. With the loss of Ostia and access to fresh quantities of grain, Rome faced starvation. This tactic foreshadowed the various sieges of Rome that took place throughout later history and highlights the city’s vulnerable geographic position.³⁴
This process of encirclement was reinforced by the other duumviral armies, with Sertorius positioning himself to the northwest of the city, by the Janiculum Hill, and throwing up bridges across the Tiber to the north (see Map 5). Cinna (and Carbo) occupied the east of the city and not only bottled up the senatorial forces in the city, but set about reducing the various neighbouring cities that still remained loyal to Rome, notably Ariminum and Placentia.³⁵
Granius Licinianus records a clash between a Marius and a Servilius at Ariminum: ‘Marius routed Servilius at Ariminum; he killed a few of his men, and accepted the surrender of the rest, whose loyalty he had undermined.’³⁶ Unfortunately, neither commander’s identity can be confirmed, but as Cinna was in overall command of this campaign we must assume that it was not C. Marius himself. The Servilius is most often associated with P. Servilius Vatia, but this remains speculation.³⁷ In any event, it shows that the war was being fought on a wider scale than just the siege of Rome and that again armies were rebelling against their commanders.
Facing the duumvirate were the key senatorial commanders: Octavius within the city, aided by P. Licinius Crassus, with Pompeius Strabo camped outside of Rome (initially by the Colline Gate), and Metellus Pius, who may still have been marching towards the city. Having encircled the city and cut off its food supply, the first major clash of arms came to the west of the city and was fought for control of the strategic Janiculum Hill, which guarded the vital river crossing points into the city (see Map 5).³⁸ Here we have some confusion as to who took part in the Battle of the Janiculum, with a number of differing scenarios.
Battle of the Janiculum
The two clearest accounts come from Appian and Granius Licinianus:
Ap. Claudius, a military tribune, who had command of the defences of Rome at the Janiculum Hill, had once received a favour from Marius of which the latter now reminded him, as a result of which he admitted him into the city, opening a gate for him at daybreak. Marius then admitted Cinna. They were at once thrust out by Octavius and Pompeius, who attacked them together, but a severe thunderstorm broke upon the camp of Pompeius and he was killed by lightning together with others of the nobility.³⁹
Marius with his supporters gained control of the Janiculum, after killing many of his opponents, who were captured and slaughtered on Marius’ orders. Octavius received six cohorts from Pompeius, and crossed the Tiber. Milonius was killed, and the other soldiers whom Sertorius sent to help Milonius were driven back. … thousands of Octavius’ men were killed, including a senator, Aebutius, and 7,000 of their enemies. The Janiculum could have been captured the same day, but Pompeius would not allow Octavius to advance any further, and forced him to recall Crassus. He did not want the fighting to stop before the elections, so that he himself could obtain a formidable office. The two Catuli and Antonius went as envoys of the Senate to beg Metellus, whose camp was situated nearby, to come to the aid of his fatherland.
During the fighting between Pompeius and Sertorius, a common soldier from Pompeius’ army, while he was stripping the body of an enemy, recognized that it was his brother. He built a pyre for his brother and in the middle of the funeral rites, after uttering many curses, he slew himself with his sword. This incident struck everyone as a great condemnation of the civil war and changed their attitudes. Nobody was able to refrain from tears.⁴⁰
The story of the two brothers occurs throughout a number of the sources and was used by a range of commentators to address the evils of civil war, and is a familiar dramatic twist in tales of civil wars ever since. There are lesser accounts of the battle in Velleius, Orosius, Tacitus, Plutarch and the Periochae of Livy:
In the end, however, he [Pompeius] fought against Cinna in a great and bloody battle. Words almost fail to express how disastrous to combatants and spectators alike was the issue of this battle, which began and ended beneath the walls and close to the hearts of Rome.⁴¹
Pompeius therefore joined Octavius and promptly engaged in battle with Sertorius. Night ended the unfortunate conflict in which 600 soldiers on each side were slain.⁴²
In the struggle against Cinna on the Janiculum, as Sisenna relates, one of Pompeius’ soldiers killed his own brother and then on realizing his crime, committed suicide.⁴³
Then he [Marius] set out and marched with his army towards the Janiculum.⁴⁴
Cinna and Marius, together with Carbo and Sertorius, attacked the Janiculum, but were routed by consul Octavius and retreated.⁴⁵
As can be seen, there are a number of key differences between the sources on the details of the battle and the identities of the combatants, which has led to speculation over whether there was more than one battle.⁴⁶ Whilst the accounts of Appian and Licinianus are clear that Marius gained entry into the Janiculum, possibly through treachery once more, he was apparently beaten back by a combined effort of the forces of Octavius and Pompeius Strabo, crossing the Tiber from the city. Appian has Marius acting in concert with Cinna, whilst Licinianus has Sertorius there (which positionally makes more sense, given that Cinna was meant to be on the east of Rome and Sertorius the northwest).
Velleius’ account makes it clear that the battle took place within sight of the city walls. Tacitus only has a sentence on the battle but is quoting Sisenna, one of the key historians of the First Civil War, and only has Pompeius and Cinna involved, which is supported by Velleius. Orosius has Pompeius and Octavius fighting Sertorius in a light skirmish (600 dead on both sides), whilst the Periochae of Livy has all four commanders attacking Rome. So what are we to make of it?
The fragments of Licinianus, which preserves the most detail, indicates that there was indeed more than one battle and that the other sources have conflated the different battles into one. As well as his account of the Battle of the Janiculum he has an account of a battle between Pompeius and Sertorius, which is generally placed before the account of the Battle of the Janiculum:
Pompeius no longer put off war with Sertorius, and openly fought against him. Envoys were sent to both sides, but achieved nothing, because Cinna believed that he had the upper hand.⁴⁷
This would fit in with Orosius’ account of a light skirmish between the two sides. Thus, whilst Marius was besieging Ostia and the coastal towns, we have an early skirmish between the forces in the north of Rome, (Sertorius and Pompeius Strabo), which need not necessarily have been on the Janiculum, but may have been anywhere in the northwest of Rome. Both sides seem to have withdrawn after light casualties and this can have been nothing more than a probing of defences, and in Pompeius’ case his resolve to defend the city.
This only leaves the role of Cinna in the fighting. Appian clearly has him with Marius, as does Tacitus (quoting Sisenna).⁴⁸ It is possible that Cinna worked his way round the south of Rome and joined Marius for an attack on the Janiculum, possibly leaving Carbo in charge of the duumviral forces to the east of the city. It is also possible that the sources place both men there as they were joint commanders.
We cannot be clear that Pompeius himself was there in person; Licinianus speaks of Pompeius sending forces to help Octavius, not actually taking part in the fighting himself, which appears to have involved Octavius and Crassus on the defending side.⁴⁹
Two interesting points arise from Appian’s story of Marius gaining admission into the city by treachery. The first is that, although this could be a dramatic flourish, there would have been a number of commanders and soldiers on the defending side who had served under Marius previously, which means that all defending forces must have had the potential for traitors in their ranks. The second comes from the naming of Ap. Claudius as the traitor, as this was the same name given for the commander of the Sullan forces that turned to Cinna earlier in the year.⁵⁰ We have no way of knowing whether these acts of treachery have been interchanged, whether it was the same person, or whether there was more than one Ap. Claudius engaged in treachery.
Following the Battle of the Janiculum, it seems clear that the besieging side abandoned the idea of taking Rome by force and continued with the slow strangulation of the city. Appian reports that Marius moved inland and attacked the cities of Antium, Aricia and Lanuvium, which were listed as being depositories of grain for Rome. Orosius adds that each city was accompanied by a slaughter of the inhabitants.⁵¹
For the defenders of Rome, the victory at the Janiculum proved to be a high point in their campaign. It was shortly after this that a pestilence struck the defending armies, killing thousands of soldiers (and presumably civilians, though we are not told of this). Licinianus provides a figure of 17,000 dead amongst the defending forces alone.⁵² The most notable casualty was Pompeius Strabo himself, who, according to Licinianus, was also struck by lightning as he lay dying on his sick bed.⁵³ C. Cassius was sent to take over the remnants of his forces.
Aside from the death of Pompeius Strabo and the massive loss of defending forces, there was the issue of Metellus Pius. The sources do not confirm when Metellus was able to disengage from the Samnite campaign (leaving them to ravage Roman Italy) and return to Rome. Again, the best source is Licinianus, who has Metellus camped outside of Rome during the Battle of the Janiculum, though we are not told where:
The two Catuli and Antonius went as envoys of the Senate to beg Metellus, whose camp was situated nearby, to come to the aid of his fatherland.
Aside from a conspicuous lack of involvement in the fighting, once in Rome, what is clear is that Metellus’ alliance with Octavius was not a solid one. Plutarch reports that the defending forces demanded that he be named commander rather than Octavius, an impossibility given that Octavius was a serving consul. However, this does perhaps indicate a lack of faith in Octavius, who is most commonly described as lacking in military skills. This is perhaps an unfair description given his apparent leading role in defeating Marius at the Battle of the Janiculum. Nevertheless, the defending forces had lost Pompeius, a large number of troops and had dissension in their command structure.
It appears that both sides then lifted the siege of Rome temporarily. Appian reports that having reduced Rome’s food supplies further, Marius advanced up the Appian Way (to the south of Rome) and met up with the other three rebel commanders at a distance of 100 stades (approximately 12/13 miles) from Rome. He also reports that the three surviving key senatorial commanders – Octavius, Crassus and Metellus Pius – had withdrawn to the Alban Hills.⁵⁴ The rebels then set up camp near the Alban Mount and offered battle, which Octavius was apparently unwilling to commit to.
The most interesting aspect of this is that both sides appear to have abandoned Rome and moved to the Alban Mount. For both sides, this seems an odd move; the defenders had successfully fought off an attack on the city and the attackers were conducting a comprehensive stranglehold on the city, cutting off its food supply. Two possibilities come immediately to mind. First, there was the issue of the pestilence and the defenders wanting to avoid being trapped in a starving and plague-ridden city. The counter argument to this is to ask why the besieging forces would want to let them leave. The second possibility is that they left to give battle, sparing the city more damage and destruction, on top of the starvation and pestilence. Another fragment of Licinianus may shed some light on this:
Octavius brought Pompeius’ soldiers into his own camp. Metellus led his army against Cinna, but his soldiers suddenly seized all the standards and with a loud cry greeted the army of Cinna, who greeted them back. Alarmed by this turn of events, Metellus led his army away, and was amongst the first to say that an envoy should be sent to Cinna to discuss peace. On his return, Crassus pressed for a battle, and advised Metellus that he … should seek out Cinna with no further delay … engaging in battle with Fimbria, he was miserably defeated but not killed, when Metellus …⁵⁵
This fragment sheds some important light on events after Janiculum. It is the only source that reports that Metellus attempted to engage in battle during this period, but could not do so because of the treachery of his army, which clearly indicates that the defenders believed that the tide of the war had turned against them. Thus, with a military solution seemingly out of the question, the issue of a negotiated peace appears to have been raised. This may explain the removal of the defending forces from the city, so that the Senate could negotiate with Cinna (and Marius) from a neutral stand point. What is clear is that the besieging forces allowed the defending forces to settle on the Alban Mount and then confront them there, rather than attempt to stop them leaving Rome.
Appian reports that the Senate did indeed send envoys to Cinna to negotiate an end to the war. This is hardly a surprise, given the stranglehold that the besieging forces had laid on the city, with the accompanying onset of pestilence and starvation, the lack of a decisive military victory and the absence of any additional forces to raise the siege. In addition to this, we are told that representatives from Cinna, and most likely Marius too, went about the city stirring up the slaves to rebel in return from their freedom (the third occasion such an uprising had been encouraged in two years). On this occasion, it seems that the call was far more successful and a large number of slaves did rise up and desert Rome, with a number ending up as a personal bodyguard to Marius himself.
This initial senatorial approach to Cinna was, however, rebuffed when he raised the issue of his deposition as consul, apparently asking them whether they came to him as a consul or as a private citizen. As the envoys could not answer this question on their own authority, they returned to the Senate to seek clarification. We are told that as these negotiations were continuing, the slaves were not the only people in Rome to see which way the wind was blowing, with large numbers of citizens leaving the city and flocking to the duumvirate. It also seems that Cinna moved his forces closer to Rome to make the point more forcefully.
Octavius and his colleagues were apparently still on the Alban Mount during these negotiations, suffering from desertions themselves, the most notable of which seems to have been Metellus Pius. Diodorus reports that whilst the senatorial envoys did not recognize Cinna as consul, Metellus left the Alban Mount and approached Cinna’s camp, with the remnants of his forces, and was the first to recognize him as consul. Diodorus also reports that both men were reproached by their allies for such a move, with Marius remonstrating with Cinna not to tempt fate by jumping the gun and Metellus quarrelling violently with Octavius on his return to camp, being denounced as a traitor to his county.⁵⁶ For Metellus, it seems to have been the last straw, and he soon left Octavius’ camp and made his way to Roman northern Africa. Despite the rapprochement between himself and Cinna, there would be no doubting the enmity between him and Marius, given the history between the two men (see Chapter 1). Ultimately, it proved to be a wise decision.
It was apparent that the key stumbling block to a negotiated peace was the fact that Rome now had three consuls: Octavius, Cinna and Merula. Both the Senate and Merula agreed that he should stand down and Cinna was reinstated as consul. With this agreed, the Senate once again sent envoys to Cinna and Marius to discuss the surrender of the city to them. Both Appian and Plutarch report that Cinna received them whilst seated on a curule chair, in his role as consul, but refused to swear an oath not to commit bloodshed upon entering the city. Marius apparently stood by his side without speaking, but with a face and manner that spoke volumes.⁵⁷ Nonetheless, given the deteriorating situation, there was little the Senate could do except make a humiliating peace and hope for the best. Thus, the Senate bade Cinna and Marius to return to the city; Rome had fallen to an attacking force for the first time in 300 years.
8. The Sack of Rome – 87 BC
With peace terms agreed (albeit one-sided), we are told that both sides returned to the city. Appian tells us that Octavius, with some remaining troops, returned to Rome (from the Alban Mount) from the opposite side of the city to Marius and Cinna.⁵⁸ Apparently, Crassus did as well, as we find him in the city when Marius and Cinna arrive. For Octavius, this act seems to have been a mixture of religious belief and the determination to maintain his honour and not yield to Cinna. Diodorus tell us that he had a plan to commit suicide by burning his house down with himself in it rather than lose his honour and his liberty.⁵⁹ Plutarch states that again Octavius had put his faith in Chaldaean soothsayers and the priests who interpreted the Sibylline Books, both of whom assured him that he would be safe.⁶⁰ As for Crassus, we have no details, but we do know that he too had a small force of troops with him. He must have assumed that there would be little personal danger in it for him, having not been part of the original Cinnan/Octavian quarrel or even the Sullan/Marian one the previous year. As they soon found out, both men had made a fatal miscalculation.
We are told that Cinna and Marius approached the city together, with their bodyguards, but that Marius halted at the gates stating that as an exile he was not allowed to legally enter the city. This was soon remedied at a hastily arranged assembly, with the tribunes proposing the overturn of the Sullan law declaring Marius and the eleven others as enemies of the state and rescinding their banishment. Both Cinna and Marius, now both reinstated, entered Rome as victors, along with their bodyguards. Octavius, displaying a greater degree of self-preservation, retired from the Forum to the Janiculum, the site of his earlier triumph, with the remnants of his forces and a number of supporters, and awaited Cinna and Marius. He too, occupied a curule chair, wearing his robes of office and attended by his lictors.
Thus Cinna and Marius, accompanied by their retinue of bodyguards and a force of cavalry, entered Rome with their honour restored. The city had not fallen to a bloody siege, but had been won through negotiation, having been placed in a stranglehold. It was clear that both Cinna and Marius were the victors, both now restored to their rightful places in Roman society. Yet it is equally clear that both men were not going to take winning gracefully. Almost immediately, two forces were dispatched to hunt down the two key opposition commanders, Octavius and Crassus.
The first detachment was commanded by (C. Marcius) Censorinus, who attacked Octavius and his retinue on the Janiculum. Appian tells us that, despite a valiant effort from his friends and soldiers in defending him, Octavius refused to flee, and even refused to rise from his chair and was murdered where he sat, despite the gods’ protection.⁶¹ Censorinus hacked off his head and presented it to Cinna, who had it placed in front of the Rostra in the Forum. The second detachment was commanded by (C. Flavius) Fimbria, who hunted down P. Licinius Crassus. Again, a fragment of Granius Licinianus preserves a note of a battle (more a skirmish) between Crassus and Fimbria, though the location in the city is not noted: ‘… engaging in battle with Fimbria, he was miserably defeated but not killed.’⁶²
Crassus was clearly defeated, but survived the encounter, though he was pursued by Fimbria’s cavalry. The pursuit ended in both his death and that of his eldest son, though the sources disagree as to whether it was by his own hand or those of Fimbria’s cavalry.⁶³Crassus’ younger son, M. Licinius Crassus, had already fled the city for the safety of Spain, and would return to play a leading role in both the later stages of the civil war and the subsequent history of the Republic.
However, the deaths of Octavius and Crassus were but the first of many, as Cinna and Marius committed themselves to a wholesale purge of their enemies amongst the senatorial and equestrian orders, filling the Forum with the severed heads of their enemies. We will probably never know the reasons for the murders of the majority of the men whose names we have, but we can assume that they had sided with either man’s enemies in the clashes of 88 and 87 BC. We will also never know the full death toll, but we are given the names of a range of prominent senators and ex-consuls (see Appendix III).
There was no escape for those nobles that had wisely chosen to flee Rome in advance of Marius and Cinna taking the city. M. Antonius, the celebrated orator and consul of 99 BC was tracked down to his country villa and murdered there. After the initial round of murders, judicial proceedings were begun against those men who Marius and Cinna wanted rid of, but who either had a position that meant outright murder in the streets would be frowned upon or had only tenuous connections with the events of 88 or 87 BC. Notable victims included L. Cornelius Merula, who had replaced Cinna as consul that year and had stood down to facilitate the peace. As a flamen, he held a sacred post that meant outright murder would be sacrilege. Another was Marius’ old colleague Q. Lutatius Catulus, who was co-consul with Marius in 102 BC and had helped defeat the Cimbri at the Battle of Raudine Plain (Vercellae).⁶⁴ Both men chose suicide over execution, Merula by opening his veins, Catulus by suffocation via burning coals in a freshly plastered room. Appian reports that there were a range of non-fatal sentences carried out, including banishments, confiscations of property and depositions from office.⁶⁵ As you would assume, Marius made a special effort to avenge himself on Sulla, even though the man himself was absent:
All of Sulla’s friends were put to death, his house was razed to the ground, his property confiscated, and himself made a public enemy. A search was made for his wife and children, but they had already escaped.⁶⁶
Thus, by the close of the year, the only senior Roman nobles left in Rome or Italy were close supporters of either Marius or Cinna, or were neutrals who could be of use to them. Any opponents were either dead or scattered throughout Rome’s empire. The slaughter was not confined to the upper classes, because although the army of Cinna and Marius had not entered the city in great numbers, they were accompanied by a 4,000-strong bodyguard of ex-slaves, those who had answered Marius and Cinna’s call for them to rebel. Whether by intent or not these ex-slaves, usually referred to as the Bardyaei, went on a rampage throughout the city plundering, raping and murdering all they came across. Most ancient sources put the blame for this squarely on Marius’ shoulders, arguing that he had a desire to make the citizenry suffer.⁶⁷ Appian, however, states that it was Cinna’s responsibility, and that he could not control them.⁶⁸ Whatever the intention, the Roman citizenry that had endured starvation and pestilence now had an enemy force looting their city. However, due to the scale of the slaughter, even Marius and Cinna were prompted into action, and the Bardyaei were murdered in their own camp. Most sources attribute this act to Sertorius, but Appian has Cinna undertake it with a contingent of Gallic troops, which is the first mention of Gallic forces in the duumvirate’s army.⁶⁹
With Rome and Italy under their firm control and their immediate enemies disposed of, Marius and Cinna turned to the future. The laws that had been passed by Sulla and Pompeius Rufus in 88 BC were annulled. This probably meant that the new constitutional arrangements were overturned, as was Sulla’s annulment of the Sulpician laws, though these may have been passed once again, the most notable of which was Marius being given command of the Mithridatic campaign once again. In an ironic reversal of 88 BC, it was Sulla’s turn to be declared hostis, or enemy of the state. Finally, both men had themselves elected consuls for the following year, Marius for the seventh time, Cinna for the second. After two years of bloodshed and civil warfare, Rome and Italy were firmly controlled by the duumvirate of Marius and Cinna, Rome’s twin rulers.
9. The Samnite Campaign
Away from Rome, this conflict is also noted for a blurring of the lines between ally and enemy and an intermixing of the various conflicts of the period. For four years, the Samnite alliance had been fighting a war against Rome, and just when they were on the verge of defeat they became allies of what was to become the new ruling faction of Rome. Aside from supporting Cinna and Marius with men, we posses a few surviving references to the Samnites taking to the field themselves once more and attacking Roman forces and towns in the region.
Unnamed Battle
The Periochae of Livy has the only reference to a battle between Roman and Samnite forces away from Rome:
The Samnites, the only ones to take up arms again, sided with Cinna and Marius.
They defeated deputy Plautius and his army.⁷⁰
Although we have no other details of the encounter, it has been suggested that Plautius was a legate of Metellus.⁷¹ Granius Licinianus also adds an interesting detail of the Samnite campaign: ‘The inhabitants of Nola advanced against the town of Abella, and burnt it down.’
It is interesting that Licinianus states that the residents of Nola attacked Abella, rather than naming a rebel Roman army or commander. Nola had fallen to the Samnites earlier in the Samnite campaign and it is seems clear that, since they were now allied to Marius and Cinna, the Samnites were keen to recover their losses in the earlier fighting.
With the success of Marius and Cinna in Rome, we must assume that the Samnites made their peace with the new Roman regime, upon their own terms. Those who wanted Roman citizenship would have it, and prisoners and booty would be restored. The key unanswered question is what status the Samnite alliance had in the Roman system after 87 BC. Whilst Samnites took up Roman citizenship and were assigned to a tribe (Voltinia), some have argued that they used their position of strength to gain a greater degree of autonomy from Rome.⁷² Thus we can see the continuation of the Italian War in this year and the two conflicts becoming entwined; it is clear that in 87 BC, the fighting in Italy was not confined to the siege of Rome, but was more widespread than the sources usually report.
10. The Senate & Citizenship
There is another interesting statement found in the Periochae of Livy for this year: ‘Citizenship was given to the Italian nations by the Senate.’⁷³ In the Periochae, this is placed in the middle of the siege of Rome. It has been argued that this could well mean that the Senate, desperate for additional assistance against the duumvirate’s onslaught, offered or granted citizenship more widely throughout Italy, rather than just to those who had not taken up arms against Rome.
The sentence from the Periochae highlights two key issues. The first is that possibly one of the key stages of the enrolment of Italians into the citizenship is known to us by only one line from a summary of Livy, showing how little we really know about this period. The second aspect is that, if correct, the Senate had seemingly managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. By the end of 89 BC, the Senate had offered citizenship to those rebels who either did not actively take up arms against Rome or immediately stopped fighting. In either case, it was a limited offer, which still seemed to maintain the Senate’s tight grip on who was admitted into full citizenship. Yet within just two years, the Senate had seemingly been reduced to offering citizenship to all Italians in the desperate hope that their former enemies would now come to their aid in the face of an even greater threat: other Romans. Thus, in many respects the hard-won gains of the Italian Wars had been negated by the outbreak of civil war amongst the Roman oligarchy.